Is D&D too complicated?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Back when I started gaming, the fanciest computer game we had were Atari 2600's, and D&D and Traveller were the only RPGs in town. We had to walk 20 miles in the snow past ravenous flying mountain crocodiles just to buy a single d12-and when you got to the store, you had to fight other gamers to the death just to purchase it, 'cause the store policy said there could be only one! AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY!

Gave us more time to read books and get into RPGs.

THAT'S the real trouble these days- too many consarned computer games eatin' up people's time and attention spans.

These newbie gamers' eyes start glazing over once you show them the second chapter of a game's player's manual.

 

[The Sigil]

*raises hand*

Actually, there's me.

Me too. I was in a used bookstore once at the age of 7 and saw the Basic Set, and bugged my dad to buy it. He didn't want to, but when we got home, he asked my mom and she said, "buy it." When we went back to get it, it had already been sold.

A few months later, when I saw the (Blue 1983) Expert Set at the local drugstore, I said, "it must be mine!" or words to that effect - then picked up a couple of adventure modules at the local KayBee Toys (my first module was DA1 - Adventures in Blackmoor and my second was B6 - The Veiled Society) a month or two later.

I've been hooked ever since.

I still plan to buy S.T. Cooley Publishing's OGL-Fantasy Lite Basic Player's Guide some time to see if it's the kind of thing I need to recommend to beginners, but it sounds like it.

There is a PREVALENT need for an attractive, introductory package that doesn't include 5' steps. If WotC's new D&D box set does the trick, then great. If they don't, but Cooley's does, then great. if neither fit the bill, then the search goes on.

Henry, check your Private Messages... you've been evangelizing this so long, I figure you need to look.

No, my product doesn't include 5' steps. I don't know if it's attractive, but I think I pared the rules down as best I could. In retrospect, it needs a few more "hand-holding explanatory" sections for beginners to go along with a very condensed ruleset... it's not perfectly beginner-friendly, which means I need to revise it to be so (it's nice to look at it after being "away from it" for a bit, I can see its weaknesses) - but as far as a simple, workable ruleset goes, I still think it hits the mark.

You have (some) Feats, you have simplified skills, and you have simple combat (one move action, one standard action) that's mostly "slug-it-out until someone drops" with some classic cinematic wrinkles (e.g., disarm) thrown in. You have reduced spell lists and low-level support. You DON'T have multiple attacks, Attacks of Opportunity, and other stuff that can confuse newcomers.

--The Sigil

 

[francisca]

That in no way makes me feel shackled or forces me to use those rules. But it's nice to have them. You know. For when I have the time.

I was grossly unclear. I never felt that I was shackled by a lack of rules for 1E, not shackled by 3E's rules. Well, maybe shackled to my desk while thumbing through multiple books

 

[Faerl'Elghinn]

In my experience, it's only as complicated as you make it. I play in one campaign where the rules are so strictly enforced that gameplay suffers terribly, and there is virtually no room for house rulings or leeway in any situation. This DM ran us through (which one, the Forge of Fury?), and still considered the Roper across a 10-foot underground river to be EL 10 (Its base CR), even though it could reach us anywhere in the room with its tentacles, while we could do nothing but fire ineffectually without jumping across, risking being swept away to certain death. It won initiative, dragged the tank across the water, and nobody could even get near the thing to free the tank from the Improved Grab (read "broken ability"). Luckily, the Bard, in his single wisest play decision ever (Wis 9, complete buffoon) attempted to bargain with the thing and succeeded. The DM's argument that the EL wasn't ridiculously high was that "well, you could bargain with it, so that brings it back down", which she cited as an option suggested in the adventure text. The problem with this standpoint, IMO, is that this option should already be factored into the CR of the Roper, as its availability is not restricted to the confines of that specific situation. Therefore, I argued, the EL should be increased due to the large terrain advantage in favor of the Roper. It's just very difficult to get some people to improvise, even though guidelines are set out in the books, and it is only fair to adjust certain rules as the circumstances demand.

Anyway, in this campaign, even though most of the players are fairly rules-savvy, we often find ourselves having to backtrack when we later realize that a given action couldn't have been taken, especially with regard to monsters, as it can be difficult to ascertain every aspect of a given monster's abilities on the fly. The rules, however, must be followed verbatim in this game, and it drags things out and causes a lot of hard feelings among the play group, especially between this DM and myself, as I am quick to point out when I have been slighted by an "illegal" action on the part of a monster, or the (perceived) objectively illogical nature of a given rule. I have been justified many times over, as several of my suggestions were actually implemented in the 3.5 conversion, those same suggestions which had previously caused hours of heated debate. Conversely, I also point out when players declare "illegal" actions, etc., as that's just the way this campaign has been run, and I prefer not to "cheat". To this DM's credit, however, she is extremely adept at roleplaying NPCs, and there are upsides to ensuring that the rules are followed. I enjoy her game immensely despite my gripes with certain aspects of it.

On the other hand, I have played in campaigns where the DM was very good at improvisation on the fly and very reasonable about tweaking rules for the sake of fun. In my opinion, open-mindedness is the only way to approach the role of the Dungeon Master when your goal is to provide the most enjoyable game possible on all sides of the table. Some people will surely disagree, but I can tell you that from my experience (about 13 years), I have found the most fun in games where the DM was less of a rules cop (especially with one particular DM- amazingly creative and animated), and I feel that this statement would be supported by everyone in my play group who has participated in any of his major campaigns.

I will submit, however, that the sheer volume of the regulations on every aspect of the game is rather immense in 3.0/3.5. I know several grizzled veterans who have trouble remembering how much they are actually allowed to perform in a round, although it seems fairly simple to me. I just have a capacity for logic, however, and can usually correctly intuit or infer most rulings without having to refer to the books, so I don't feel justified in criticizing these players for their inability to retain or apply previously gained knowledge, especially given the magnitude of the adjustment from 2e to 3e. Some players in my group (all intelligent people, all of whom know perfectly well how to add) still have trouble accurately calculating their total attack rolls when the total bonuses are not explicitly written on the sheet and circled in red. Regardless of this fact, though, the rules for calculating whether an attack hits or not are far simpler under the new rules (or more straightforward, at least), and it helps to know exactly how many things you can do in one round, as arguments can be avoided simply by looking a given action up on the chart.

 

[Corinth]

You misunderstand the point of the Roper encounter in The Forge of Fury: There are encounters other than those balanced for the intended PC groups, and when it's a mismatch that disfavors the PCs then the PCs ought to run. Not all encounters are there for the PCs to beat.

 

[kamosa]

In my experience, it's only as complicated as you make it. I play in one campaign where the rules are so strictly enforced that gameplay suffers terribly, and there is virtually no room for house rulings or leeway in any situation. This DM ran us through (which one, the Forge of Fury?), and still considered the Roper across a 10-foot underground river to be EL 10 (Its base CR), even though it could reach us anywhere in the room with its tentacles, while we could do nothing but fire ineffectually without jumping across, risking being swept away to certain death. It won initiative, dragged the tank across the water, and nobody could even get near the thing to free the tank from the Improved Grab (read "broken ability"). Luckily, the Bard, in his single wisest play decision ever (Wis 9, complete buffoon) attempted to bargain with the thing and succeeded. The DM's argument that the EL wasn't ridiculously high was that "well, you could bargain with it, so that brings it back down", which she cited as an option suggested in the adventure text. The problem with this standpoint, IMO, is that this option should already be factored into the CR of the Roper, as its availability is not restricted to the confines of that specific situation. Therefore, I argued, the EL should be increased due to the large terrain advantage in favor of the Roper. It's just very difficult to get some people to improvise, even though guidelines are set out in the books, and it is only fair to adjust certain rules as the circumstances demand.

Anyway, in this campaign, even though most of the players are fairly rules-savvy, we often find ourselves having to backtrack when we later realize that a given action couldn't have been taken, especially with regard to monsters, as it can be difficult to ascertain every aspect of a given monster's abilities on the fly. The rules, however, must be followed verbatim in this game, and it drags things out and causes a lot of hard feelings among the play group, especially between this DM and myself, as I am quick to point out when I have been slighted by an "illegal" action on the part of a monster, or the (perceived) objectively illogical nature of a given rule. I have been justified many times over, as several of my suggestions were actually implemented in the 3.5 conversion, those same suggestions which had previously caused hours of heated debate. Conversely, I also point out when players declare "illegal" actions, etc., as that's just the way this campaign has been run, and I prefer not to "cheat". To this DM's credit, however, she is extremely adept at roleplaying NPCs, and there are upsides to ensuring that the rules are followed. I enjoy her game immensely despite my gripes with certain aspects of it.

On the other hand, I have played in campaigns where the DM was very good at improvisation on the fly and very reasonable about tweaking rules for the sake of fun. In my opinion, open-mindedness is the only way to approach the role of the Dungeon Master when your goal is to provide the most enjoyable game possible on all sides of the table. Some people will surely disagree, but I can tell you that from my experience (about 13 years), I have found the most fun in games where the DM was less of a rules cop (especially with one particular DM- amazingly creative and animated), and I feel that this statement would be supported by everyone in my play group who has participated in any of his major campaigns.

Nice post, I think this summerizes what I believe as well.

The main problem I have is that I find the rules in 3E much harder to improvise around than in previous additions. This is because every ability and rule is so intertwined that it is really hard to start hacking off the parts of the system you don't want to play with.

Example IMHO, the improved fighter feats are broken. I don't think improved grapple and great cleave and improved trip add much to the game and represent a fairly serious imbalance within the parties I've seen. Hey, it's just my opinion, but one that is shared by most of the people in my group.

So, we decide to take them out. Now we have to balance out how the fighter class is balanced because now all of it's extra feats have no where to go. So, now we are balancing the classes as well as removing things we don't want to play with. After much negotiation we decide that the fighter gets some bonuses in other places.

Now we start to play and I come across a monster with Improved Trip. Doesn't seem fair to leave this in for every monster if we took it out for the players, so we start twinking with the monster feats to make them fair for the players. Blah, now I am balancing out monsters, classes, and feats.

Then my mage casts something like Evards Black Tentacles... we read the description and it is making opposed grapple checks.... which we took out. Ack, now I have to redo the spells....Ackkkk


It just seems like the system is well designed to pile stuff on to it, but poorly designed to take stuff out of. Unlike 1E and 2E where you could easily ignore much of the extra rules, 3E makes you play with them. For some this is no problem, but for other groups this represents a substantial increase in the number and scope of the base rules used.

 

[teitan]

One assertion that always seems to go unchallenged in these discussions is the "I used to make up NPCs all the time but it's impossible in 3E."

Poppycock.

Stuff and nonsense.

You want to make up an NPC? What the frilly heck is stopping you?

I don't know about everyone else, but when I make up an NPC on the fly, I do something like this:

DM: He attacks! He rolls a 15. Um, your AC is... 21, so that's (insert very quick estimation of what BAB a character of this likely class at this likely level is going to have) a hit. He does (another estimation of a damage bonus) 8 points of damage.

(quickly jot down "AB +6 ish, dam +2 ish" so that future attacks are more or less consistent)

On we go. Somebody casts a spell, so I make up a Fort save. Characters move around the battlefield so I decide if he has Tumble or maybe Spring Attack.

This is how I did it in OD&D. It's how I do it now. What is so magic about 3E that other people can't do this?

And there goes Balance out the window plus a million other things and a bag of chips. Sure you can do it... but should you? In OD&D and AD&D I would just assign a level and USE THE FRICKING SAVING THROW CHART on my DM's Screen for that information, throw in a magic item or two and randomly determine money and if he had spells I would just cast spells keeping track of how many he used as compared to the class chart in the PHB just so I didn't use too many... 3E offers too many tactical and balance options to be able to do that on a lark and create an NPC that doesn't overpower my players or is underpowered.

Jason

 

[Sir Whiskers]

It just seems like the system is well designed to pile stuff on to it, but poorly designed to take stuff out of.

Did anyone else think of Microsoft when reading this post?

 

[Faerl'Elghinn]

You misunderstand the point of the Roper encounter in The Forge of Fury: There are encounters other than those balanced for the intended PC groups, and when it's a mismatch that disfavors the PCs then the PCs ought to run. Not all encounters are there for the PCs to beat.

True, the PCs could have fled, but that doesn't change the fact that, if the PCs were to decide to stand and fight (the only time when the EL really applies), the difficulty of the encounter would be increased by the specific terrain and layout of the room, and thus the EL should be adjusted accordingly (according to the Dungeon Master's Guide). In our specific situation, flight was only a last resort, as a character would have had to be abandoned, which is generally the last tactic employed by the party in question. If the Roper hadn't gotten a surprise round due to its natural difficulty to identify as a threat (again, part of the CR, no problems here), then yes, the party could and would have fled. The creature's CR, however, does not provide for non-negotiable surrounding terrain.

 

[teitan]

I may have been a little harsh on that one but I am one of those DM's who likes to be prepared and I like to keep it fair and consistent with the classes for my players, even in 1e or 2e I could do that but I also used the rules for my ad hocing of NPCs, I can't really do that in 3e because of the skills and feats etc. involved and I don't want to give my NPCs too many feats y'know...

Jason